Themes

Priority theme:Challenges and opportunities in achieving gender equality and the empowerment of rural women and girls;

Review theme:Participation in and access of women to the media, and information and communications technologies and their impact on and use as an instrument for the advancement and empowerment of women (agreed conclusions of the forty-seventh session);

Bureau

The Bureau of the Commission plays a crucial role in facilitating the preparation for, and in ensuring the successful outcome of the annual sessions of the Commission. Bureau members serve for two years. In 2002, in order to improve its work and ensure continuity, the Commission decided to hold the first meeting of its subsequent session, immediately following the closure of the regular session, for the sole purpose of electing the new Chairperson and other members of the Bureau (ECOSOC decision 2002/234).

The Bureau for the 62nd session (2018) of the Commission on the Status of Women comprises the following members:

H.E. Ms. Geraldine Byrne Nason (Ireland), Chair–designate (Western European and other States Group)

Preparations

Expert Group Meeting In preparation for the sixty-second session of the Commission on the Status of Women, UN Women convened an Expert Group Meeting on the priority theme: “Challenges and opportunities in achieving gender equality and the empowerment of rural women and girls.” The Expert Group Meeting was co-convened by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and World Food Programme (WFP) at IFAD Headquarters in Rome, Italy, on 20 to 22 September 2017.

Organization of the session

The Commission's two-week session will include the following activities: